Rowan laughed under his breath and nodded while he fanned a small flame. “That’s because they’re mostly salt and vinegar. Two things you need desperately. Eat all of them.”
Lily took down the pickles and the jar of blueberry preserves and brought them over to Rowan.
“Does this mean no squirrel blood?” she asked, placing the jam on the hearth and handing him the pickles. He stopped what he was doing and, without needing to be told, started wrenching on the tightly sealed lid. A satisfying sucking sound followed.
“No squirrel blood,” he said, handing her the opened jar with a smile. “That ought to be enough salt to hold you over for a while.” He frowned suddenly. “We should still get you back to Salem soon though. We can’t live on our own in the woods forever.”
“And I didn’t let you cut off all my hair for nothing.” Lily started munching on the pickles, and her mouth watered with pleasure. “So good!” she mumbled around her food. “You explained the salt part, but why do I crave vinegar?”
“Vinegar is an antimicrobial, antiviral, and antibiotic. The less you have to fight internally, the stronger you are,” he said, feeding kindling to the small fire. “So you can fight your enemies instead.”
Lily crunched and nodded, too happy with her jar to ask any more questions. She sat down on the hearth, right up close to the tiny fire, and ate pickle after pickle. She’d never seen anyone build a fire in person before. The way Rowan watched it and fed it was fascinating to her. He took such care tending to its every whim that she’d finished all the pickles before he was done. Lily couldn’t think of anyone in her world who had that kind of patience.
“Aren’t you starving?” she asked.
“I am,” he replied, still stoking the growing flames.
“Eat,” she urged, nudging the jam in his direction.
“I will.” He glanced over at Lily’s pickle-less pickle jar. “Drink the brine,” he ordered gently.
Even though drinking pickle juice was something she would have considered disgusting just three days ago, Lily didn’t hesitate. When she’d finished the last drop, Rowan reached out and placed his fingertips on the inside of her wrist. His willstone glittered at the base of his throat as he gathered some of Lily’s excess energy. After a few heartbeats, Rowan released her, stood, and carried the unopened jam back to the cabinet.
“Why won’t you eat?” Lily asked incredulously.
“I don’t need to. I have you,” he said with a shrug.
“Don’t you want to eat something? I can give you energy, but that’s not the same as feeling food in your stomach, is it?”
Rowan joined Lily by the fire, sitting close to keep warm.
“This used to be an Outlander shelter for those who couldn’t quite make it to Salem,” he told her. “Traders, some of them coming from as far away as the mountains, would stop here as a last resort. Most people who come here are desperate, and some are near to dying. This little cabin and those preserves have saved a lot of lives.”
His expressive lips pressed together, like there was so much more he wanted to say, but was holding back.
“When did it save yours?” Lily guessed.
Rowan met her eyes with a touch of surprise, and then looked away. “When I was seven my father brought me to the Citadel to be tested,” he said. “We had to leave our people and make our way east alone to do it. Outlanders don’t usually risk it. Being chosen is a long shot, so they only bring their children to be tested at the Citadel if they happen to be near Salem during the child’s testing year.”
“Why did your dad risk it?” Lily asked. She couldn’t begin to imagine trying to get through these dangerous woods alone with a little boy.
“My dad was a doctor. Most Outlanders don’t have any book learning, but he did. He said he knew the signs, and he told me I had what it takes to make a good mechanic. Maybe even a great one.” Rowan breathed a mirthless laugh. “Mostly, I think he didn’t want me to die in the mines or fighting the Woven out on the Ocean of Grass.”
An image of the Great Plains popped into Lily’s head, and she nodded her understanding, encouraging Rowan to continue.
“At first, it was like we were charmed. We traveled for weeks without a single problem. It wasn’t until we were two days from here that we finally came across a Woven.” Rowan stopped and looked down at his interlaced hands, rubbing one thumb over the other. “She was an old thing, half blind, half deaf. But she still had enough venom to bite my dad before she died. I had to carry him here.”
Lily reached out and took one of Rowan’s hands, angling her head under his so he would look at her.
“Did he die here?” she asked.
Rowan looked at Lily, and a quizzical smile lit up his face unexpectedly. “No. My dad told me what to do. Even though we were in the middle of the woods and I didn’t have a willstone yet, my dad knew how to heal without magic.” Rowan’s voice dropped and his eyes looked inward. “He was really sick. And heavy. By the time we got to this cabin, it was like entering paradise. A roof. A fire. Jam.”
“Jam,” Lily repeated, swallowing the tight feeling in her chest.
“The best jam I’ve ever tasted.” Rowan cradled her hand in between both of his, running his fingertips over the blue veins that traced under her translucent skin and circling the swirls of her fingerprints. “So I’ll leave that jar of jam for someone else. Someone who really needs it.”
The first time Lily had seen Rowan glaring at her through the glass window of the café, she had been so overwhelmed by his anger she hadn’t noticed much else about him. Now she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen, right from the first, that he was absolutely beautiful. His thick hair, sensitive mouth, even his hands were shaped in a way that appealed to her.